LAS VEGAS (AP) — If Sin City’s sports books took bets on the weather, snow in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve would normally have terrible odds. It might pay out this year, though, if the white flurries start falling on the Strip’s desert-dwelling casinos …

WASHINGTON (AP) — The cost of being uninsured in America is going up significantly next year for millions of people. It’s the first year all taxpayers have to report to the IRS whether they had health insurance for the previous year, as required under President …

HONOLULU (AP) — A couple getting married near President Barack Obama’s vacation spot in Hawaii learned the hard way that the big day rarely goes exactly as planned. Natalie Heimel and Edward Mallue Jr. — both U.S. Army captains stationed in Hawaii — were scheduled …

NEW YORK (AP) — A nation, a workplace, an ethnicity, a passion, an outsized personality. The people who comprise these things, who fawn or rail against them, are behind Merriam-Webster’s 2014 word of the year: culture. The word joins Oxford Dictionaries’ “vape,” a darling of …

They each turned a moment of violence into a call to action. For James Brady, that moment came when he was shot and wounded by a would-be presidential assassin. For Chung Eun-yong, it was the killings of his two children during the Korean War. Brady …

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Severe weather slamming the southern U.S. two days before Christmas killed at least four people, flipped cars, knocked out power to thousands and damaged several homes and businesses. In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant declared an emergency for two southeastern counties where …

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Volunteers at the North American Aerospace Defense Command are getting ready to monitor Santa Claus as he makes his storybook Christmas Eve flight. Technology and social media have become an important part of the U.S. and Canadian military tradition, and NORAD …

NEW YORK (AP) — “The Interview” was put back into theaters Tuesday when Sony Pictures Entertainment announced a limited Christmas Day theatrical release for the comedy that provoked an international incident with North Korea and outrage over its cancelled release. Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton …

LONDON (AP) — British singer Joe Cocker is dead at age 70. His London-based agent, Barrie Marshall, said Cocker died early Monday of lung cancer in Colorado, where he has lived for the past two decades. Cocker was known for a memorable Woodstock performance and …

While raising kids has never been easy, it can be one of the most rewarding things that some people do, especially when children grow up to be productive, contributing members of society, and that includes knowing how to give back and enrich the communities in …

WASHINGTON — As the 2014 filing season nears an end, the Internal Revenue Service has issued another strong warning for consumers to guard against sophisticated and aggressive phone scams targeting taxpayers, including recent immigrants, as reported incidents of this crime continue to rise nationwide. The …

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — The North American Aerospace Defense Command is ready to track Santa’s yuletide journey. The NORAD Tracks Santa website, www.noradsanta.org, features a mobile version, a holiday countdown, new games and daily activities. Official NORAD Tracks Santa applications are also available …